Doctors are warning of an acute shortage of intensive care beds for children as staff spend hours ringing round to try to find places for those who are critically ill.

There were only three paediatric intensive care beds available for the whole of England and Wales at midday yesterday as doctors faced having to transfer children hundreds of miles to different hospitals. Last Friday, one trust in the Midlands which needed to admit a very sick child but was full, was told that the only available bed was in Cambridge, nearly 100 miles away. They decided not to move the child but waited for another child to be moved to a normal ward.

Large NHS deficits, a shortage of specialist nurses and the usual winter increase in respiratory infections have left paediatricians playing 'musical chairs' as they struggle to cope with demand.

The lack of beds is so great that when the children have severe breathing difficulties, doctors sometimes have to ventilate them on normal wards while they seek a bed.

In one case, doctors at West Suffolk Hospital spent 16 hours ringing round trying to find a paediatric intensive care unit (Picu) bed for a baby who had come in at 8am. Birmingham Children's Hospital, which takes patients from across the Midlands, has had to turn away 159 referrals from April to December.

Doctors, talking through the online forum Doctors.net.uk, have also warned that children sometimes have to be taken on to adult intensive care units because of the lack of an appropriate bed.

One doctor in a children's intensive care unit said: 'It is distressing and I can't believe parents don't realise what is going on. I think the deficits must be affecting it, because often it means a ban on using agency nurses and that can mean having to close a bed.'

This month's problems have been exacerbated by an outbreak of the respiratory infection bronchiolitis, causing inflammation within the lungs, which can be highly serious for young children.

Most hospitals don't have a Picu, which are in large specialist hospitals and used to look after the children with life-threatening conditions. But much of the problem is also thought to be caused by the fact that hospitals are doing more routine surgery for children, which means less availability of beds on wards, so that sometimes children cannot be discharged out of intensive care.

Figures from the Emergency Bed Service, which co-ordinates transfers of children for three-quarters of Britain, show that during December they have had to arrange 20 transfers of sick children into intensive care units.

The Department of Health said it kept figures on transfers of patients, but did not break them down into the type of beds involved. The figures show that the number of paediatric beds has stayed the same over the past five years, at around 283, with a daily occupancy rate of 70 per cent. But doctors say there is more pressure, possibly because of a lack of nursing staff.

Professor Alan Craft, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, told Hospital Doctor last week: 'The evidence nationally shows the situation is worse than usual as it is a worse winter for infections, though there are no fewer beds than last year.'